Friedrich Schiller, 1759-1805

Biographical note

German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most
important classical playwright. Critics like F.J. Lamport and Eric Auerbach have noted his innovative use of dramatic
structure and his creation of new forms, such as the melodrama and the bourgeois tragedy.

During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship
with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang Goethe, with whom he frequently discussed issues concerning
aesthetics and encouraged Goethe to finish works he left merely as sketches; this relationship and these discussions
led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism.